Chrysanthemums
by Cygnet Committee
Summary: Femme Slash, (Blackcest) Bellatrix is leaving the Black manor, as she sits tranquil against the window, with a soft flurry of snow falling over the autumn leaves, the door creaks open... RR
1. The Faces of Flowers

_"I'm so glad you came,_

_I'm so glad you remembered,_

_To see how we're ending our last dance together,_

_Expectant,_

_Too punctual,_

_But prettier than ever,_

_I really believe that this time its forever."_

**                                                                                              -Last Dance "The Cure"**_  
  
_***  
  
The sun had long ago set in brilliant shades of pink orange and violet beneath the darkened hills. The last day of autumn. The cold would come soon; this had always been Narcissa's favorite season. She reminisced briefly of the days when they had been younger. The days when they had danced under the flurry of new falling snow. How very like a broken angel she had looked then, her Narcissa, as close to innocence as she would ever be.  
  
She remembered how the ice particles had clung to every strand of those long pale eyelashes. How the rouge brightened the alabaster skin at the sharp cheekbones, and gave life to a malleable cartoonish face. Very like a still life painting, Narcissa had always been immobile as she was immaculate.  
  
Oh how Bellatrix had been the opposite. She couldn't hold still, ever, in all her years of existence, she had never been immaculate, always a dark eyed beauty. A woman made of fire, too lively to remain in one place. Constantly spinning and changing like a caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly.  
  
Tonight would be the last one she spent in the Black manor. The entire pureblood society had cultivated to her home for one of the predictable organized events her mother through every year. But this was sort of like a "going away" party for Bellatrix. An engagement party to Rodolophus, however, She belonged to only two things.  
  
Her master, whom she had pledged her allegiance too, and her living porcelain doll, Narcissa. There was no room in that vast belonging for her to be torn in another direction. Rodolophus would make a good husband, and she would make a good wife. However she would never love him. She could never.  
  
She had asked to be alone. She had needed it. She glanced dully at her reflection in the gleam set into the window. Her fringe bangs like dark strands of silk over her large forehead, her deep-set hazel eyes bore into that of her reflections, as if she were trying to read herself. Some things simply weren't meant to be fathomed.  
  
How many hours had she been in this room? How many years had she lain against the window, propping her elbows on the windowsill, pondering thoughts that someone as young as she had been, should not have to contemplate. That had been Bellatrix. And how long had Narcissa sat in the chair opposite the bed. Rocking, backwards and forwards with that familiar doll in her arms that resembled her so very much. How those tiny legs hadn't reached all the way over the chair yet. How the silk and lace had spread over the seat in a flowering motion. How that tiny bow in the back swished with the motions of her pace.  
  
Those eyes of hers had been like fresh cut diamonds set into her eye sockets. Always glittering with maliciousness uncommon to someone so petite. How the platinum tresses had snaked their way down her back, pulled gently away from her face and held back with that familiar ornamental serpent clip.  
  
Like a ghost she haunts this room, even though she lives on in this house only a few doors away. Had Narcissa taken a leave from the party to become pensive? The probability was unlikely. Narcissa divulged in attention .She had always grasped any opportunity to bat her eyes at anyone who she felt was worthy enough.  
  
Lucius would no doubt be here, He, along with Rodolophus obviously. Bellatrix would have to cling to his arm, thank and smile at everyone who offered his or her congratulations. Although tranquil on the outside, inside she felt like screaming.  
  
Through her oak doors he could hear the instrumental union and the melodic tones of human conversation. How the regal all sounded like a chorus of mockingbirds. Their voices soft and delicate. They never said anything unless it was worth taking time to say.  
  
Her dark hair was spiraled and c half knotted at the back of her head. The dark silk of it set ever so nicely over the satin gown. Flowing over the window seat and onto the floor. Her shoes coupled and resting against the wall nearest her bedside table. Her gloves strewn across the squashy surface of her resting place.  
  
For a moment she admired the details of her room. The elegant craftsmanship of the walls the construction of her furniture held a century of memories for her family. Years of memory for the two sisters. How each night Narcissa's familiar pitter-pattering footsteps came up the hall; the doors would creak open ever so slightly. She would slide into her arms and there she would stay until morning.  
  
Bellatrix remembered watching her, she remembered all those years of this tradition and they never spoke a word to each other. The slow rise and fall of her tiny chest, the steady breaths against her skin, and the wisps of gold mixing with her ebony ropes. How Narcissa had twirled her tiny fingers through those dark locks until she fell into slumber and all movement ceased.  
  
She remembered dressing Narcissa every day, deciding exactly what shades of blue and violet would match her that day. How she had pulled on the woolen stockings in the winter and the silk embroidered ones in the spring. How she had laced up the minute parallel holes in the back of her doll-like dresses. Tied the large bows behind her back. Buckled the leather shoes and gently raked the comb through her sun kissed mane.  
  
Even as they grew older and their figures evolved to that of a woman, Bellatrix still slid on the stockings, and now she buckled the garters, she still tied the dresses but now there was a corset, she still brushed her hair unnecessarily, and Narcissa still curled up against her at night.  
  
Bellatrix had grown so lost in her thoughts that she hadn't noticed the arrival of her sister. After a few moments more of remembrance, she turned to find her youngest sister Narcissa standing before her, her arms held hundreds of chrysanthemums. She unblinkingly stared forward at her sister who in turn gazed right back.  
  
"The last buds of spring," she said quietly dropping her hands to her sides as the formerly cradled flowers fell on their heads into Bellatrix's lap and over the seat of the windowsill. As Bellatrix shifted forwards the flowers quivered and slipped from her person.  
  
"Carefully preserved through fall. They're a gift." Narcissa stated blandly. She always had a stony quality to the way she spoke.  
  
"I have no love of flowers like you have." Bellatrix whispered more to herself than to anyone else, as she turned to the window once more, a further shower of white chrysanthemums splattered the floor as she turned.  
  
"This I knew, but they're so pretty, so lively, I thought you might like to destroy them."  
  
"I would," Bellatrix snapped her teeth at the neck of a blossom and clipped it from the stem in that sharp motion. She began tearing the petals from the heads, and tossing the remnants into the fire on her right. For a few moments Narcissa watched undaunted.  
  
The lovely memories of spring went up in roaring flames. Bellatrix was made of fire. Narcissa lifted her skirts and sat beside her sister. When Bellatrix screwed her face up in anger she clawed at the flowers and angrily tossed them into the flames in more frequent and larger amounts. She let out an angry scream as she turned around to find still so many of them littering the floor around her. She swept them up and pushed them under the wood where the caught quickly to the blaze and curled up into ash.  
  
Bellatrix, Now on her knees before the fumes, panted viciously for a few more moments until she once again attainted a passive composure. Narcissa remained where she had taken her seat, at the windowsill, holding the last flower in between her index and middle finger.  
  
She extended her hand and Bellatrix snatched at the remaining bloom, she was about to tear it to shreds when she looked into Narcissa's face. The ice queen still had her arm extended and she appeared frozen in time.  
  
"Would you destroy everything?" Narcissa asked gently. Bellatrix's expression softened, and she gripped her sister's bony fingers.  
  
"Not everything." Bellatrix pressed her lips against the cold flesh of Narcissa's palm.  
  
"Do you remember the springtime?" Narcissa questioned inaudibly to anyone with the exception of Bella. And in an instant She did remember.  
  
*** Spring was still a pale green clinging to winters cheek; the first flower had sprung before their very eyes. It had been Narcissa's first sign of magic, at the age of 5, that very day. Narcissa had made the flower emerge from the folds of melting white. Bellatrix had been 10 then, preparing to enter Hogwarts herself, determined to uphold the family honor. Unlike that of her sister Andromeda, who had gotten pregnant by a Mudblood and ran off with him at the age of seventeen.  
  
That spring Narcissa had been betrothed to Lucius and Rodolophus had claimed Bellatrix. At all the suitor meetings, Bellatrix had been rude and obnoxious, deliberately so she would never be chosen. And it had worked for six years until he came along.  
  
He found her spunk intriguing. How she was more like a boy, more roguish, controlling, powerfully radiant. So very unlike a lady, and yet so very feminine indeed. He had requested betrothal at once. Bellatrix had been given no choice. Her parents were glad to have given her away at last, and that's where the animosity began.  
  
She hardly ever spoke to her parents. They were merely vassals to bring her into existence. They were never intended to mean anything to her. True she did not despise her parents, but she didn't love them either. Her father was a self made man, but he was never at home, or if he were, the office was where he remained. Their mother indulged herself in the glamour, the wealth, throwing parties left and right, growing obsessed with the glory and honor of the black lineage.  
  
Bellatrix prided herself with her purity, but scorned the regal mindset that came with it. The glamour isn't what she wanted. It was the pride. Her younger cousin around Narcissa's age had never thought along those lines. He despised everything about his bloodline, his family, and his history. He wanted to sever all ties in the same way Andromeda did. Bellatrix shook her head, the blighted fool.  
  
That spring her parents had gone away for the entire season, that spring she would never forget. With andromeda gone they had no one to rat them out. The house elves took care of them, but they were in charge of the house, for the entire season. This would be Bellatrix's last season at home, and Narcissa's first alone without the parental.  
  
They bid their parents goodbye, and immediately discovered the room of a thousand keys. This house had so many locks, keys openings closings, doors, entrances, exits, and Bellatrix had been determined to explore them.  
  
They found the key with the red fingerprint smeared across it, and up to the attic they traveled. Bellatrix had discovered this secret room at the age of four. She had always gazed up to the tallest peak of the manor with the circular glass window, and wondered, what's up there?  
  
Now she had been forbidden to go looking, but her curiosity caught the better off her, and she was going to take advantage of this moment. Narcissa followed closely behind her, silent as a doll, and obedient as a dog. When at last Bellatrix climbed the latter the overhead doors lock wouldn't budge. Perhaps the key was wrong?  
  
She played with the lock a few more minutes' ant at last it clicked and swung open. The first thing she noticed was dust. Dust everywhere. It thickened the air alike a dirty fog, and teemed in and out of her lungs. She quickly pulled a handkerchief from her bodice and put it over Narcissa's face.  
  
Once they had both entered the room. The door had closed. And there was no lock from the inside. They were trapped. Bella had not noticed this flaw at first. All she saw was a room full of old toys, a merry-go-round, a cluster of porcelain dolls, dressmakers dummies, lamps, sofa's and a long Curtin that ran along the back of the room. She vaguely wondered what was beyond the curtain, however she was too intrigued by the carousel to care at the moment.  
  
Narcissa had the handkerchief tied around her nose and mouth so's not to breath in the infested unhealthy air. Bellatrix straddled a ceramic horse and as soon as she touched its mane it began to move, it creaked and the melody it emitted was dull and haunting. Narcissa continued to creep towards the porcelain dolls, and then she screamed.  
  
Bellatrix had rushed to her side before she could collapse to the floor. The porcelain dolls faces were all smashed, and the ones that weren't were crying tears of blood. Their tiny hands extended reaching for Narcissa. Bellatrix's eyes widened with fear. She didn't know what to make of them Narcissa was shaking with fearful sobs now. She scratched up Bellatrix's torso and screamed into her shoulder.  
  
Bellatrix cradled Narcissa and backed away from the eerie dolls. Bellatrix attempted to open the door but realized there was no handle, no lock, no nothing. And she began to beat her fist on the wood calling for house elves for andromeda, for her mother and father, for anyone to come and help.  
  
But darkness came and went. She couldn't hear any other part of the house in this damned place, and she wondered if anyone could hear her. She cured up in a corner with Narcissa whose tears never ceased. The dolls remained where they always were, and their hands were still stretching forward. The blood dripped from their glass eyes and the carousel occasionally started its haunting tune. This place was evil.  
  
True EVIL, her master doesn't believe in evil, but she knows of its existence. Whatever held this room together, whatever it was the epitome of evilness. After four days, no food no water, no help. She grew desperate. And began searching for something to eat. She found nothing but dust and clumps of hair, hair that to her horror had clumps of flesh at the end.  
  
She grew even more afraid of what was held behind that curtain. The dust caked the wooden floor, and there were footprints in a circle from Bella's pacing. At one point she had gotten so angry that she picked up one of the bleeding dolls and threw it against the wall where it shattered and crumpled to the ground.  
  
Narcissa let out a fresh wail at this scenario. Bellatrix had grown so irritable that she left her there to quake and cry. She grew mad with her rage and tore back the curtain in desperation for some kind of food. What she found would scar her fore life.  
  
Seven glass coffins each with a small child in it. The first a little girl who's face was horribly disfigured. Siamese twins attached at the back of the head, a little boy with no legs, a baby with one eye, twins who appeared normal, a gaggle of 12 babies all born premature, and at last a blonde haired girl who appeared to have no tongue and no hands.  
  
This is what incestuous nature of the black family produced. At the turn of the century, she heard it was custom to kill a maimed young, or a child that was a dishonor to the family in some way. So this is what they did with them, the locked the children up in this room to die, so they could never shame the family again.  
  
Bellatrix let out a scream so long and loud that she could hear nothing else around her, their coffins preserved the bodies and yet they slowly decayed. The face of the girl with no tongue was deteriorating from the bone. Bellatrix stumbled backward in horror, becoming entangled in the velvet curtain, it caught around her neck and began to suffocate her, as her body grew limp she was sure she saw the toungless girls eyes open.  
  
Narcissa had untangled her and dragged her body to the corner, where the two of them shook and wept until a week later andromeda let them loose.  
  
She had come back to gather her thins since she had discovered their parents were out of town. She was cradling a newborn baby in her arms, and Bellatrix watched mesmerized as its face changed completely, it re arranged its appearance on its own will.  
  
Bellatrix wondered if they had lived back then, if Andromeda and her faceless baby would be in one of those coffins. Bellatrix hated her sister for what she'd done to the family's name. She hated everything about andromeda, however no amount of hatred could bring her to condemn Andromeda to that horrible place.  
  
For the rest of the season. Bellatrix had night m mares, she ate very little, and hardly left her room, Narcissa had taken all her porcelain dolls and smashed their faces with a poker, she watched the fire eat their hair, and curled against Bellatrix's side.  
  
Things were never the same then. That moment brought the two of them to an understanding. Of what is trivial and what means everything. Pride in whom you are, not what to resemble is what mattered. All those defective children should have been prized for being purebred, not discarded because the were deformed.  
  
She convinced herself that they were traitors, like andromeda, she tried to justify her a castors actions. But she always thought of the toungless girl, and the tears of blood from those shattered dolls. When her parents had come home, she asked about the room and found the girls with the missing tongue and hands, had been their aunt.  
  
*** "Of course I remember." Bellatrix whispered wrapping Narcissa in her embrace, resting her face in her sister's familiar blonde coils. "How could I forget.?"  
  
"Would you destroy me someday Bellatrix?" Bellatrix looked into those diamond eyes and decided.  
  
"Only if you wanted it Sister."  
  
"Would you kill me if I told you to? And would you enjoy it if I wanted you too?"  
  
"I could never enjoy it."  
  
"Even if that was what I wanted?"  
  
"I could never enjoy killing you, I love you."  
  
"Love." Narcissa repeated it slowly; as if it were a foreign word she couldn't comprehend. After the look of puzzlement she plucked a petal from the flower and slid it into her mouth.  
  
She fisted Bellatrix's hair and put her feather light lips over that of her sisters. Their tongues flicked and they both sank to the floor. They unfastened their corsets and slid the dresses from their bodies and mingled together like the light against the dark.  
  
The flames licked the wood beside them, the air steamed at each and every touch. Bellatrix loved to control her, she loved to taint that seemingly innocent façade, and she loved to make her body curl the way it always does in times like these. Narcissa loved to submit, she loved to be loved, and it was all so glorious.  
  
When at last they reached the pitch and fell together their naked bodies entwined together, like, rope in a delicate knot. Bellatrix loved this part. The part where they braided their fingers into their manes, and poisoned each others mouths with the forbidden taste of one another.  
  
The whole aspect that this was wrong, made it feel so right. Made it all so fine. Bellatrix felt like the cold winters night, and Narcissa the frosty daylight.  
  
"Ah, love." Narcissa confirmed to herself. "Will you love Rodolophus?"  
  
"Not like this."  
  
"How so?"  
  
"He is not you, he and I are two bodies made of fire, but our hearts are made of ice. With you I melt the ice, with him I only freeze over."  
  
"Lucius tells me he loves me." Narcissa said benignly twirling her fingers through her waist length hair. Bellatrix began lacing Narcissa's corset, pulling the dress over her head and registering each and every lace. She silently attached the garters and slid on the pointed buckle high heels, encrusted with diamonds. Narcissa's dress was a pale blue, pale like the bluish prisms in her eyes.  
  
Bellatrix laced herself, and registered her own dress, as Narcissa reapplied the make-up, and her usual bangles and drooping necklaces. Bellatrix wore no jewelry, and her dress was red. The color of dinner wine, with matching pumps complete with a tiny bow at the toe. She twirled her hair around an ornamental black pearl headdress.  
  
Narcissa registered it for her, and twirled the dark strands with her wands magic. Holding every strand into place. She powdered Bellatrix and applied all makeup and Bellatrix squirmed uncomfortably, she never wore make-up.  
  
Narcissa left an invisible kiss on her sisters cheek, and began to clip back her own hair with that familiar Serpent clip with the chopstick sliding through it. Bellatrix smiled slightly and coiled her arms around that tiny waist and she gently bit her sister's ear.  
  
"Will you come down to the party Bellatrix?" Narcissa asked as she put her hand on the doors handle.  
  
"I haven't got a choice have I?" Bellatrix said arms folded under her breasts gazing out the window as a flurry of light snow began to fall.  
  
"Will you enjoy it.for me?" Narcissa half pleaded.  
  
"I cannot do that." Bellatrix stated quietly as she registered the ruffled train of her dress.  
  
"You cannot enjoy anything for me?" It was a statement more than a question.  
  
"I can enjoy you, not anything for you." Bellatrix said walking to the door and opening the handle for Narcissa. "You know this."  
  
"Yes." Bellatrix slid her black gloves over her arms and clicked her way down the hall leaving Narcissa standing there in the doorway alone.  
  


Copyright © 2003 Darcie Delano  
Harry potter Copyright © J.K Rowling/scholastic books and W.B INC.  
".Never say anything unless its worth taking a long time to say." and "Spring was still a pale green clinging to winters cheek"-Copyright © J.R.R Tolkien "the Lord of the Rings".  
"Last Dance"-Copyright © 1979-2003 Robert Smith of 'the Cure'  
"Smashed their faces with a poker, watched the fire earth their hair"  
-Copyright © Anne Rice "The Queen of the Damned"  
**  
Authors note: I'll be adding onto this story, so if you want to hear more, Please Review.**


	2. The Mirror Reveals

_"You're world is an ashtray,_

_We burn and coil like cigarettes,_

_The more you cry your ashes turn too mud."_

- **"The reflecting God" Marilyn Manson**

Bellatrix had crept silently into Narcissa's room. She didn't consider herself nosey, more so like a curious cat. She always felt at liberty to prod through her sister's things, even if Narcissa detested it. Bellatrix used to aggravate her something awful, in the days when she would leave the pale blue room in disarray… Narcissa was an organized enigma.

Bellatrix fiddled with her nightgowns, and swept back her curtains. Nothing was out of place. She was such a perfectionist in fact, that she, since the age of five, had ordered the house elves to clean her room twice daily. Narcissa herself bathes three times a day, she'll spend hours in that large basin tub, rose petals layering the top of the water, sticking to her milky white flesh.

Bellatrix had such fond memories of her diminutive quirks. But alas, no haven is complete without a secret, and behold! Upon inspection a hand mirror, with carvings of golden Veela set into the back and handle, sparkled in the dim light, the mirrors face… was shattered.

It seemed slightly unnerving that a woman of such insurmountable vanity would destroy such a lovely crafted work to ruin. And what was even more uncharacteristic about this unusual discovery was the fact that it was slid under her mattress and strategically placed in the center.

It was in fact so unlike Narcissa, that Bellatrix was mildly disturbed. Every reflective surface coveted a gleam of Narcissa, and she appreciated nature's admiration for her, with such a glorious absence of modesty.

Bellatrix handled the mirror idly for a few more minutes when she was jumped to a start at the appearance of Narcissa leaning languidly in the doorway.

"Cissa…" Bellatrix cooed in that mock baby voice she enjoyed imitating.

"I hate it." Narcissa said eyeing the mirror strewn across Bellatrix's hands. "I _hate_ it." She repeated again nastily.

"What is it? Grandmothers?" Bellatrix was talking to herself more than Narcissa. She eyed its handiwork carefully. "Mid 1300's… You can tell by the gold's coloring, and the style of artwork, the carvings are positively alive…"

"Alive…" Narcissa whispered, taking the mirror into her hands. "Alive… yes its alive…" Narcissa stroked it lovingly a smile appeared briefly at the corners of her thin lipped mouth. Suddenly she clenched her teeth and widened her eyes, swinging the mirror violently about her head and smashing it against the wall where the remaining shards of mirror sparkled to the ground, slivers of a broken tapestry.

"It tells me I'm Ugly, " Narcissa spat viciously in Bellatrix's direction. "It shows you what you look like on the inside, and this is what I see!" 

Narcissa gripped the front of Bellatrix's robes and tossed her to the side, upending the mattress and scooping all of the mirrors pieces into her long fingered hands.

She tossed the pieces onto the blank back and handle, and suddenly they morphed, forming back against the wood, looking perfect, despite a few missing shards in the center and around the edge.

"Have a look!" Narcissa raged her hands were bleeding from the shards pressing into her palms.

Bellatrix gazed into the mirrors depths and was horrified at what she saw; a pale corpse with hollowed eyes and a twisted expression, her mouth was contorted into an insane hideous smile. Her face was grotesquely misshapen and scarred, her cheeks were hollowed, and her limbs were bare. Nothing but bone, and her expression was surprisingly tranquil, in tune with its ugliness. 

Bellatrix Felt drawn to the mirror, she inclined her face to the demon reflection, and Narcissa snatched it from her ands. "You see?" She hissed softly.

Bellatrix blinked slightly, she felt a strange craving to gaze into the mirror. Narcissa held the mirror to her face and gazed profoundly. She screamed and tossed it to the ground. A face of a frozen woman the flesh flaking away with the ice, a look of sheer terror carved into her expression was shattered in an instant.

"NO MORE!" Narcissa wept crushing the shards with her high heel. She took the handle and shoved it under her mattress and took the glass shards and slid them into a hatbox.

"It wants us to gaze, wants us to see as we are inside. Just like the Veela, their beauty is only skin deep, when they're angry their true forms mutate and they are hideous. Grandma was oblivious to its powers, she saw only her reflection because she was herself, she displayed exactly as she is. What you and I hide Bella are inner demons, Grandma was a demon, we are the same, in disguise. We are ugly… I am ugly…." Narcissa seemed shocked at her own assessment.

"Ugliness is all a part of perception. To me pain is beauty, distance detachment from all things human, makes you the most beautiful thing that could exist. You have what most people do not, knowledge of life's truths, truths only some are blessed with. Truth is harsh, but just is it not?"

"It is so." Narcissa said somberly, collapsing helplessly against the bed (which the house elves were making up as they spoke). Narcissa kneaded her temples with her knuckles massaging her strain with pressure. 

"The party is almost over, in a few hours that is. You have to make an appearance, its mandatory that you do, it's your last in this house is it not?" Narcissa alleged finally.

"True, but I have no ambitions to be there. I won't miss any of them. Oh hell Narcissa, I can't remember half their names! And I have to return to them one last meaningless time so they can all say their falsely significant goodbyes, and cart me off with a man I don't love." Bellatrix was surprised at her own words. She didn't love Rodolphus? 

"Then if not for the family, then for me, I want to be with Lucius, and I want to be with you. I want to say goodbye…" She added softly. Bellatrix reached gently for Narcissa's hands and wiped the blood from them with the train of her dress. The blood erupted freely, and Bellatrix licked at the wounds like a placid animal.

"The purest of bloods…" Narcissa began.

"…The blacks…" Bella continued for her.

"…Upholding three centuries of tradition…" Narcissa smiled.

"…Will not disappoint our lineage." Bellatrix whispered against her sister's hands.

***

The Evening passed by slowly, like a strip of film rolling in its light filter. It was exactly as anticipated; Bellatrix clung to Rodolphus's arm smiling bemusedly at everyone with his or her congratulations. Bella would smile a bit wider and nod towards them.  

Narcissa glowed like a light, admirers flocked around her, women played with her hair, and plucked at her dress, and Narcissa soaked up the glory as she always does, occasionally casting Bella gleeful stares.

Lucius entered late to these functions as he always was, he lifted Narcissa into the air so her toes were just off the ground, and he would kiss her lightly, the same way Bellatrix did. And Narcissa would smile into his eyes holding the sides of his face laughing slightly.

"They look so happy…" Bellatrix said to no one in particular.

"Yes…" Rodolphus said quietly. "…And so will we my love." Bellatrix turned her head sharply in surprise, her eyes wide her mouth open into a tiny O of curiosity. She closed her mouth and nodded curtly in his direction before turning to Narcissa who was swept off her feet and into her fiancé's arms instantaneously.

"She's just like a princess…" Bella whispered aloud.

"Indeed, but you're like a queen." Rodolphus beamed at her, he put his arms about her collarbone and rested his chin into the small of her shoulder. He flicked his tongue against her ear and she smiled. Her hands came up her chest and clung to his wrists that crossed under her neck.

For a moment they held each other swaying slightly with all time stopped. (And it was only when the doors opened to reveal a most unexpected visitor) that they broke apart.

Andromeda was standing there with an emerald velvet cloak. The hood drawn over her auburn tresses, oh she had always been a beautiful creature, but an untouchable treacherous one. At her side was a six-year-old child, with a mop of curly pink hair and large gray eyes. The flesh was cartoonish and pale, so very unlike a real child. In that tiny red dress she looked slightly out of place.

Bellatrix advanced angrily towards her older sister. Andromeda was shaking slightly, and the little girl hid behind her legs.

"What calls for the occasion?" Bellatrix whispered venomously.

"I came to offer my congratulations, and this…" She extended her arm and dropped a silver ring shaped like a serpent, with emeralds lain into the eyes.

"Its lovely…" Bellatrix said without thinking. She slipped it onto her index finger and admired it briefly.

"Bellatrix, you are my baby sister, no matter what happens my love for you will not waver. Even if you despise me…"

"Would you like to accompany me on a walk?" Bellatrix asked quickly noticing that her sister's arrival hadn't yet been noticed. She knew what sort of drama was going to be generated if she were discovered. And yet something about his brave appearance intrigued Bella to question further before turning her away.

They strolled through the garden paths in silence. Andromeda was glancing around quickly and darting her eyes from rose to rose as if trying to work up the nerve to say something. So very unlike Narcissa and myself, Bellatrix thought pensively. 

"This is Nymphadora by the way…" Andromeda grinned toothily; she always did have nice teeth, straight and white like their grandmothers. Bellatrix found something strangely beautiful about her sister; it was different from what she felt for Narcissa. It was a sort of detached hidden admiration that she always had possessed.

She always had held more daring then Bellatrix and Narcissa combined. The one thing Bella feared was her family's wrath, and Andromeda defied it all for something that was indefinite. 'But what's life without taking risks?' Andromeda used to jest loudly to Bellatrix on those warm summer nights in the rose garden.

"You know I used to love coming here with you…" Andromeda said. And something went off in Bellatrix's head. Like a book snapped shut in one sweeping motion.

***

_It was the middle of July. Bellatrix was no older than eight and Andromeda was only just fifteen. Bellatrix liked to pick the thorny roses and squeeze the stems in her hand so they would gouge her flesh and she would have Andromeda fuss over the wounds and pour leftover potion on them so's they would heal before her eyes. Andromeda babied her. _

"Would you like me to push you in the swing?" she would ask merrily, and Bella would smile silently and rush over to it.

_"Wheee! How fun!" Bellatrix would laugh at Andromeda's words she was always entertaining, so full of life, so full of love, with a great potential to leave her mark on the world, but with desires only to have children of her own._

_Bella had raced her through the gardens on those days, and Andromeda always let her win because her legs were shorter. She ran her ragged and the two of them would fall into the lawn together laughing like children._

_"Bellatrix, you are beautiful you know that?" Andromeda said affectionately as she brushed silky black strands of hair from Bella's face._

_"I know." Bellatrix said playfully jumping on her sister, with her arms wrapped about her neck, and then Andromeda would scoop her into her arms and shuffle around bare footedly through the garden. They used to burn their feet on the cobblestone path. Bellatrix always wore a large hat to protect her fair skin, but Andromeda had a rosy glow about her, that somehow made her more lively._

_Bellatrix remembered the way they looked as they collapsed into the tulips, the way Andromeda's mouth bore her pearly white teeth, and how Andromeda's chest heaved from uncontrollable laughter. Bella would only smile, she never laughed, and she would only grin slightly with glittering eyes. Her hat would slide from her head and hang over her back attached around her neck by ribbons sewn into the straw brim of the hat._

_"We'll have this forever won't we Andy?" Bellatrix asked serenely as she ran her fingers through her sister's long shimmering coils._

_"Always Bella, always!" Andromeda kissed her forehead quickly and stuffed the hat onto her head roughly, she would snicker behind her hand and Bella would swat at her playfully._

***

"Why such animosity between us? I've never understood where it all went wrong."  Andromeda seemed to be sharing her thoughts.

"You grew older, and more naïve. I know now that the decisions you made were out of delusional love, people are always more mundane when under this clouded emotion. I can hardly say I blame you, but I do not approve. You angered mother something awful. But I know-how she was hurting when you left. She cried for weeks." Bellatrix said monotonously, staring off into space.

"Really?" Andromeda looked slightly taken aback. "I thought mother hated me, she was always so strict… it must've been tears of frustration that I had dishonored the black name, I bet she enjoyed singeing my name off the tapestry, did she not?"

"She did." Bellatrix admitted emotionlessly.

"So is that all it was?" Andromeda asked quietly.

"Mother was only crying because you betrayed her, not because she missed you."

"No, I mean is that why you hate me?" Andromeda's eyes filled with a strange anxiety.

"No…" Bellatrix though briefly… 

***

_It was the winter of Andromeda's discovered pregnancy. Mother had found out only because Andromeda had a dress designed only a month prior to the unearthing, and it no longer fit her. Their mother had tugged violently on the back of the dress._

"Why doesn't it fit?" Spat mother. "Have you gained weight?" Andromeda wept and said "no". She was tested a few days later due to their mother's suspicions. Once she was found pregnant, their parents were disappointed, not angry, until they arranged the marriage asking for the boy's name. She wept into her hands and they eventually discovered he was a muggleborn not pureblood at all.

_Andromeda was very along by this point. They told her to leave, and locked her from the house out in the snow._

_Andromeda's things had been left in her room, untouched. The room felt contaminated when you walked in. No one was allowed to sluice the room of her former belongings. Bellatrix used to clamber into that room on summer nights and she would breath in the roses with bloody hands and Andromeda would not come to her aid._

_Bellatrix grew to understand that somehow she had become attached to her sister, she had loved her, and she had become a mother figure that her actual mother could never have measured up to.  Bellatrix used to wear Andromeda's clothes, and use her makeup, expecting her to come in angrily and tell her not to mess with her things._

_But she never came._

_She heard no word from Andromeda. She imagined Andromeda writing to her and their parents using the letters for firewood, but Andromeda made no attempts to contact. Bellatrix despised that she cared too much, that she looked forward to it so much. She longed for many months, for those warm summer days and the loving memories she would always have for her sister._

_But the traitor had tainted their blood. three centuries of pure undiluted blood and the new breed was dying, fading into oblivion. Sirius her cousin was defiant and disloyal. Andromeda was a mud bloods lover, and all those children in the attic who were held there for their betrayal. _

_The family had always foreseen when a child would make a mockery of the bloodline. But the last seer had died out a hundred years ago and since then the families have held onto pride, that itself kept the pureblood community uncontaminated, undaunted by society's ever changing population of half bloods and mud bloods._

_And now it was all crumbling. She hated Andromeda for scarring tradition, for leaving muddy footprints on a clean slate of pride. She hated Andromeda for being happy when she wasn't. She hates Andromeda for being beautiful, for being the white sheep in the blackest of families. She hated Andromeda for betraying her._

***

"…No that's not why Andromeda." Bellatrix finished after a long moment of contemplation.

"Then why Bella?" Andromeda pleaded as the tiny child yawned and rolled over in Andromeda's arms.

"Because you made me love you, because I cared about you. Attachments are dangerous. I can't afford to have feelings for a traitorous girl like you."

"A traitorous girl…" Andromeda's voice shook. "Is that what you think I am?"

"That's what I think you are!" Bellatrix exploded making the child awake with a start.

Andromeda was shaking now, and she was choking back sobs. "I thought I'd at least have you. Narcissa's too young to remember me, or to care even, but you…you were different Bella, you were like my first child. I raised you since I was 7 years old and my life was blessed with your birth. And now you hate me! And all because I did what was right for me. I was never meant for this life! I hate dresses, I like being a housewife and making dinner for my husband, I like taking care of my child and I like living as I do. But you …none of you can be happy for me!"

"How can you expect me to understand? This is our world! This is what we own! This is our domain, our purpose!"

"The first born is the most likely to fail, because they haven't got older siblings to look at and learn from."

"Don't try to justify yourself here Andromeda! Your betrayed us, dad knew something was off when you got into Ravenclaw, but I knew something was wrong when you started kissing that boy in the rosebushes back in your 4th year.  I always thought of kissing as an expression of emotion, not really intimacy, just a spur of the moment sort of expression that words can't provide. So I assumed that was what you were doing. But the way you kissed looked so… disgustingly sentimental, so attached and loving, like you'd always been."

"Do you resent that I was loving, that I am still?" Andromeda asked softly.

'To a certain degree yes I do."

"Will you hate me like this forever?"

"I can hold a grudge for a very long time." Bella snapped bitterly.

"Can I convince you otherwise?"

"No I don't think so." Bella raged on walking ahead of Andromeda. But Andromeda didn't attempt to catch up. Quite the contrary, she remained where she was, stock-still hands at her sides with her head tilted slightly and a very bland expression on her face. Nymphadora was sagging her head sleepily against Andromeda's legs.

"We have nothing to discuss then?" Andromeda sighed heavily.

"No we have nothing else. But I do give something I wish to show you.

***

They snuck up to Narcissa's room through the open window, and Bellatrix pulled out the mirror and placed the pieces back. She tossed it carelessly at Andromeda who gasped slightly. 

"Oh! Its…beautiful!"

"Yes." Bellatrix came behind Andromeda to see the reflection. Andromeda was sparkling, she had a translucent glow about her, like a veil, she was exceedingly beautiful was a dazzling smile. 

"I don't look like that!" Andromeda laughed openly… just like she used to. Bellatrix showed the two of their reflections together and Andromeda bit back a shriek.

"Nor do I.' Bellatrix said sliding the mirror unbrokenly under the bed. 

"What was that?" Andromeda asked as she stroked her daughter's curly hair.

"Grandmothers mirror." 

"Why was it broken?" Andromeda asked coming to her own conclusions about what the mirror did.

"Cissa."

"Oh… but why?"

"It showed her as an ugly woman." Bellatrix watched Andromeda throwback her head and laugh heartily.

"Oh that _IS_ funny!" Andromeda howled. "So very like our materialistic, self absorbed, beauty isn't it?"

"Very." Bella replied. Nymphadora was now into R.E.M sleep, her chest rising and falling at predictable intervals.

"I'd better go. She's exhausted poor thing."

"She's a quiet child."

"Indeed, however you haven't' seen her at home, she's mad!" Andromeda laughed slightly. "She's a metamorphmagus." 

"How clever you are…" Bella whispered into the Childs ear.

***

Andromeda dropped from the window, using a spell to cushion her fall. Bellatrix watched from the window. Looking down on her older sister with strained eyes.

"Promise under all this hatred their lies good memories of you and I?" Andromeda asked of Bellatrix.

"'_And all our days have lighted fools_'" Bellatrix quoted.

"Shakespeare." Andromeda smiled, and with that, she disappeared into the night. Never to be retrieved again. Bellatrix knew she would never see her sister again, and yet she felt a sense of closure here, like she's reached a peace with her, and although she would always hate the betrayal, she could never hate Andromeda. 

***

**Authors Note:  I'll still be continuing this, so if you'd like to read on, LEAVE A REVIEW.**

Shakespeare is © to himself, and so are his plays.

Harry Potter, as you all know, is not mine either,

It's the product and © item of J.K. Rowling,

"The oldest is the most likely to fail" –© to my friend Kevin and his teacher.


	3. masquerade

"Another life  
  
another time  
  
We're Siamese twins writhing intertwined  
  
Face to face  
  
no telling lies  
  
The masks they slide to reveal a new disguise"  
  
-"Face to Face" Siouxsie and the Banshees.  
  
Narcissa's had noticed Bellatrix's absence by now. Andromeda wouldn't DARE show a black family function after the disgrace she'd caused. Yet Narcissa felt her sister's presence not long ago. Andromeda radiated this unsettlement that no one could really quite understand.  
  
She longed to get away from these imbeciles; she yearned for early retirement, and a cup of tea. Chamomile just like she always had it. She enriched her life with the finest things, when you're surroundings are immaculate, internally you get bored. Narcissa's was the most materialistic person you'd ever meet, but the constant remodeling of the house had always distressed her father, who grudgingly permitted her renovations for she was his favored daughter.  
  
Bellatrix was such a contrast; while Narcissa spent her days dictating to anyone she has the influence over, Bellatrix would sit out on the wood-and- rope swing as the wind swayed her slightly with its breeze. She'd sit in that swing all day, scrawling incoherencies Narcissa neither comprehended nor desired to peruse.  
  
Bellatrix had a whole library of her notebooks, each one far more dissipating towards life and existence then the last. Bellatrix had always been viewed as if through a kaleidoscope, fragments and distortions of something she'd probably never get the full picture of. They were like the dark and the light. Neither prevails, for one could not exist without the other, but the difference is so drastic it's startling.  
  
Narcissa had proper pride in everything, Bellatrix hated everything, and Andromeda denied everything. They were all shades of gray.  
  
No one hated hate more than Andromeda. That was Andromeda for you, Narcissa mused, always a contradiction. Bellatrix loathed anything she laid her eyes on, there wasn't a reason for it, and it was a part of her personality. There was something in the way Bellatrix looked at you, that made you shrivel up inside. She has such a calculating gaze. She guts you like a fish with her eyes.  
  
Narcissa reminisced about something fine and wore a true smile on her featureless face beneath the mask. This metaphorical mask was used so constantly you'd surely believe it to be her true face. If only she had emotions, if only she had true expressions, if only she felt anything towards anything, regarding anything.  
  
Its frustrating when you want a reaction out of something chiseled from stone, or more from something colder, from ice, dry ice, the kind that will tear your flesh if you touch it. So you'd give up, because no matter what you do, that stone is never going to move, and that ice will never cry or even smile back at you.  
  
As she shrewdly glanced around the entrance area, which was very spacey and used for casual greetings and whatnot, Narcissa was ready to move them into the dancehall, so she called their attention.  
  
"If I could direct you ladies and gents to the dance hall just along the corridor over there, yes—no—yes right, just there, I'll have the banquet prepared and we'll toast to my dear sister—who seems to have run off again!" Narcissa said with a cold sarcasm as she analyzed the room so intricately it was like her eyes were magnifying glasses, nothing got by Narcissa.  
  
The crowd chuckled at Narcissa's bitter comment, and they all moved like a slow motion herd of cattle, spilling into the double doors and trailing down the red carpeted hall through another set of oak doors and into a spacious rectangular room that stretched so high you couldn't see the ceiling, or so that was the illusion, with the ceiling charmed like the stars, highlighting all the constellations, such as Bellatrix's and even their cousin Sirius was marked. Paintings and tapestries decorated the old walls and the wooden flooring shone beautifully in the flickering firelight spilling across half the room from the massive decorative hearth that a giant would be comfortable by.  
  
Narcissa was so lost in her critical observations of everything, that she had forgotten her arm was linked with her fiancé's. Lucius looked at her all the time and beamed. He was so possessive, he wanted her all to himself, and he made it well known that she was, in his mind, his property, he owned her and everything she touched, everything she held dear. But she would just laugh when she thought of this. He'd never own her; she wasn't even there to begin with.  
  
Bellatrix was another matter entirely. No one could own her or any part of her. Narcissa used to spend so many nights twisting her long dainty fingers through her sister's hair, breathing in perfect unison with her, and yet being so detached inside that it was almost meaningless.  
  
She suddenly jolted from her reverie when she picked up a certain perfume. It was as she recalled sitting up in her room, in a jade bottle with a label in silvery letters 'illusion" spread across the side, it reeked of jasmine and eucalyptus with this strange whimsical not harsh quality to it. But it was brittle, and she never wore it. She preferred delicate, sweet scents that draw people to you like a child to candy.  
  
Bellatrix used to wear that horrible scent. She's drenched herself in it. She said it felt like spring. Narcissa would scoff and say it felt like chlorofoam. This had always made Bellatrix smile. Bellatrix used to smother the house elves with a cloth seeped in chlorofoam, knock them out for several hours and drag their bodies somewhere that would aggravate father, so they'd be dismissed or beaten. Bellatrix was always conniving.  
  
She remembered sitting in a circular basin that was set into the white marble floors of their bathroom, walls rose up and arched, leaving a glass ceiling that poured the light in by day and shone the moon through at night. She remembered how she would always have the temperature at the same warmth, hotter than average but not to boiling, with pink salts poured in tainting the water like blood, and the rose petals would form a layer on top, and would sift with the slightest movement in the water. Narcissa loved moments like these, where she would move her arm to examine her hand and the rose petals would sick to her flesh like a second skin, and yet flake off at the slightest touch. It was delicate, just as she's always had things. And sometimes she'd dose off in there. And when she did she wakes only at the caress of a serpent.  
  
Bellatrix would slide into the water unnoticed until she reached out those spider like hands and trailed her pointed fingertips carefully down her cheek tracing the path of a tear so to speak, with a rapt expression of exultance in her eyes, she was of course mesmerized by the vain Narcissa, who wasn't surprised at the fluttering of her pale eyelashes to see Bellatrix leaning her limber body on its front into Narcissa's.  
  
Bellatrix had a body that felt like a rock. All her muscles were tense, but she looked so frail and angular, you never would have guessed her to feel so solid. Her dark hair would spread evenly through the tub, raining down her head and into the discolored water. Her intense brown eyes fixated on Narcissa's clear ones, that gazed back lazily, almost bored.  
  
But that was Narcissa's true face, impassive. Bellatrix would raise her hands from the water like a dolphin for a breath of air, and like serpents they'd slither through the halfway mark to the other. Her palms would gently and in slow motion hit Narcissa's collar where the fingers would in sequence fall over the curve of her shoulders. Taking advantage of this, she'd glide forward and press her body into hers. Narcissa s eyes would show a sign of surprise but her face remained immobile.  
  
Bellatrix would dart her tongue along her sister's neck like a snake breathing in her scent. Narcissa would close her eyes and squirm beneath the resilient angles and bones of Bellatrix's figure. Her tongue would trace the outline of her cheekbones and would pause only to protrude and settle inside the parted lips.  
  
Narcissa would think of nothing else. Her tongue like poison, so swollen, fills up her mouth and drowns her. Bellatrix would then pull Narcissa in an upright position with her bony hand gripping the younger ones chin only; her arms limp at her sides and her eyes wide with some indecipherable sentiment. She'd ravage her mouth and bite into her muscle, Narcissa would then flinch and flail her arms helplessly at the sides, as her body shivered and shook. Bellatrix would lick off every blood droplet from her own lips and smile toothily with her pointed teeth that she'd inherited from their father, tingeing with the scarlet substance.  
  
Narcissa would twitch involuntarily, and Bellatrix would peel a petal from Narcissa's breast ever so slowly before she'd open Narcissa's mouth again and place the petal atop the wound and then close her mouth manually before pressing her rouged lips against that of her sister.  
  
Bellatrix was always the one. She would tinker with Narcissa like a new toy or some unknown object, she press certain things and monitor the reactions, shed bite and kiss and suck certain areas all over just to see how Narcissa would respond, or to see IF she would react at all. And when Narcissa began screaming in that bittersweet feeling of pleasure and pain, Bellatrix would grip her mouth with her brittle grasp and submerge that angel face under the rose petals and smack that blonde head into the stone basin. Bellatrix would straddle her sister and as her sister went down into the water flailing like a madwoman, drowning, being drawn in, to be cleansed, to be purified.  
  
When Narcissa's mouth bubbled through the cracks in Bellatrix's fingers, and her body ceased all movements, Bellatrix would laugh and draw her figure upwards and cradle that beautiful woman in her long limbed arms as she showered soft kisses over her platinum hair littered with rose petals.  
  
And when Narcissa would wake Bellatrix would be laying beside her in that same-feathered bed, with the blue velvet covers drawn about them, their sticky figures intertwined like a braid. Narcissa would pull away and fret over her hair and its quality. She always hated if one single strand was out of place. It had to be perfect, she had to be perfect, and—everything had to be perfect.  
  
Bellatrix would rise completely relaxed and uncaring of modest censorship. She would run about the house in the nude all day if Narcissa didn't fist her hair and drag some form of clothing over that rigid body. Bellatrix would laugh and laugh and laugh. Then she'd take that wretched perfume and practically roll in it like oil. She'd pour it in massive amounts into her palms both of them and run it through her hair and over her breasts, along her throat and over her back, down her thighs and over her legs, between her fingers and through her toes, an she'd reek of it so bad Narcissa felt nauseated. But Everything Bellatrix did was to an extreme. Nothing was simple or moderate. It was none or all.  
  
Bellatrix wafted out of the room in those days with her maniacal laughter ringing in Narcissa's ears. Like a curse she taints this place.  
  
When Narcissa came out of this state of bemusement, she excused herself from Lucius and the party and she headed for the back door where she knew Bellatrix would not be far from.  
  
Bellatrix sat for the longest time at the edge of that lily pond, where the crickets chirped all about her, serenading to avoid the silence. Bellatrix was too preoccupied to care about anything but Andromeda. So perhaps a part of her does belong to someone else. Perhaps she is capable of love, what if love is what she held for Andromeda? What if lust and domination was all she had with her other beautiful counterpart in birth?  
  
Narcissa approached and Bellatrix knew it, but she didn't want to talk to her, and she had a feeling Narcissa knew that but would disturb her anyway. For it's what Narcissa does best above all things. Ruin, the ruiner should be her middle name or her title; both seem fitting do they not?  
  
"Go away from here." Was the first words from Bellatrix's mouth as she heard the footsteps crunching through the lawn and in her direction.  
  
"Is that really what you want, my child?" Came a slightly high-pitched voice from behind her. She turned so quickly and fell to her knees in one swift motion.  
  
"My LORD!" she whispered covering her mouth with her hand and bending her abdomen over her folded knees.  
  
"Bella, have I not told you to greet me properly?" he questioned softly. "Of-of course you have, I am—I have forgotten myself, I'm sorry." she crawled forward and kissed the hem of his black cloak and then shifted her gaze into those gleaming red eyes.  
  
"My lord...may I inquire as to the occasion?" she asked meekly.  
  
"It wouldn't matter, you would inevitably find out would you not?" he said coldly. "I have come to initiate you."  
  
"W-what?" she asked not fully understanding. "I killed that girl for you, my lord, I—I was bathed in her blood and left for dead in that cell crucioed and ... erm...unwittingly violated by each member before I pledged my allegiance even if it would result in death, was that not the initiation?"  
  
"That my dear, was the public initiation, I was testing you, to see if you would stand beside me even through torturous circumstances. For I have an idea that you'll be more valuable than most, so I would like you to be my aid as you will, my pupil and my personal consort. Rudolphus's was honored when I brought it up with him, to submit you into my servitude, and I am sure you're thrilled at this prospect are you not?"  
  
"OH! Its all I've ever wanted—"  
  
"Good, then you will need the mark. It's strictly for members of my inner circle. You will bear it with pride, when I call for you it will burn and you will apparate to me on command." He said slowly, his instructions were always vague; his plans were too complex for meager deatheaters to see the whole perspective of it, until it comes to fruition.  
  
"Yes, of course my lord." She said with an insane devoted desperation. "Anytime, I'll not hesitate a moment."  
  
"Very well. Your forearm please." It was a demand more than a request, but she didn't mind in the least. She threw both her arms at him. He smiled with that lipless mouth slightly and pointed his wand to her main artery. After a second of correct placement he chanted 'morsmordre!' and the twanging flesh tore into the image of a skull with a snake protruding from its mouth. And her eyes widened in amazement.  
  
"My lord..." she said in awe, "its beautiful!" She cradled her arm in her right hand, cupping the torrents of beautiful crimson purity leaking under her fingernails and over the sides of her wrist. She analyzed more carefully her flesh was torn but also burning, it was mending together. She stared wide-eyed for several minutes in silence until it completely healed over and the blood began to dry and flake.  
  
She hadn't realized how close she was standing to him until she looked up. Her eyes were quite wide in awe and her mouth was slightly open absentmindedly. The moonlight shone across her face, giving the impression of a silvery paleness, unmatched even by the dark lord himself.  
  
Bella shivered involuntarily as she darted her eyes up into his determinedly yet quivering with hesitation. She bit her lip slightly as her eyes glistened... she moved slowly closer to him. Lord Voldemort stared back at her with pitiless red eyes set into a handsomely narrow face of a boy who once was, but has since died and grown distorted. He was completely immobile, but she swore she saw something moving behind his eyes.  
  
She was still gripping her left arm as it twinged, and she arched her feet to bring her height up to its fullest extent, and she placed a delicate feather-light kiss on the left of his mouth. She settled down again and looked up and him fearfully, as if expecting to be punished, but instead he rose his brittle fingers and set his hand over her forehead in an almost fatherly fashion, as he drew away, a sinister smile was playing around that progressively lipless mouth. She stood there clutching her for arm as he dissapperated.  
  
"Bellatrix! come out Bellatrix!"  
  
Bella was dressed in wine, with a burning arm and a coldness lingering over her lips. "Hullo, Narcissa." She greeted with disdain.  
  
"Well?" Narcissa asked angrily. "Don't you think you'd better show for your own party at some point?"  
  
"I did show." Bella stated plainly.  
  
"Not nearly long enough for comfort." Narcissa proclaimed bitterly gripping Bellatrix's shoulder. "Come along now."  
  
"I'd like to remain a bit longer." Bella said distantly looking off into the night sky.  
  
"You've wasted enough time Bella, now come."  
  
"Do you really think you can make me do anything?" Narcissa froze at this. She thought of the many times Bella had done the opposite of what she was consented to do. Narcissa looked down under her dark lashes sadly, and startlingly and uncharacteristically, slouched her shoulders and looked feeble.  
  
"No. I do not think so."  
  
"Then leave me in peace with my own thoughts." Bella said turning her back, massaging her arm.  
  
"What's that on your arm?" Narcissa was swift, she snatched it into her own fingers faster then Bella could protest, but on second thought, she wasn't really sure she would have minded anyway. Narcissa gazed down at the mark she'd seen so many times. She vaguely thought of tracing the mark with her fingers over Lucius's arm, because it was the only thing that made him shiver.  
  
There was a long silence. Until Narcissa looked up with piercing eyes.  
  
"You've left blood everywhere, how careless of you." Narcissa crouched beside the lily pond and dipped her cupped hands under the water, where she rinsed Bellatrix's arm, careful not to drizzle onto either of their dresses. Bella flinched a little, the contrast of old pain and new fresh pain was always the most agonizing.  
  
"Bella?"  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"Please come with me." Bellatrix had never seen anyone in her family look so pleading before now, especially not her sister.  
  
"If it pleases you dear sister." Bellatrix said softly after a lengthy silence. Narcissa sighed with relief and assurance. She linked arms with her sister and the two of them set off for the manor in an air of content.  
  
"I was not aware this was a masquerade." Bellatrix said stiffly when she entered the dining hall where hundreds of people were conversing politely.  
  
"Sorry about the wait Ladies and Gents, but if you'll direct your attention here, we have located our little graduate." There was an enthusiastic applause, but no cheering, that was for unrestrained undignified people like the Weasleys, cheering was an unnecessary display of loud stupidity.  
  
"That you all for coming" Bellatrix said politely.  
  
"Yet this is far from all we have to regard!" Narcissa said setting her hand on Bellatrix's shoulder. "We also have a bride-t-be in our midst. And who would the lucky suitor be? Why, but one Rodolphus Lestrange! Come forward Rodolphus." Narcissa said politely with her ice like smile and a modest curtsy.  
  
As Narcissa dissipated to the side to allow room for Bellatrix's future husband, Bella felt a part of herself go. She was so detached in this moment. The chandelier cast prismatic lights through the crystal, reflecting off the silver and into her eyes, casting her silhouette against the oak of the door, and Rodolphus grinned broadly as he took her delicate hand and gave it a regal kiss.  
  
Further clapping and noble smiles followed. Bellatrix was gazing around at everyone from beneath her heavily lidded eyes and she curled her arm around his and leaned against him ever so slightly as he stood tall and she fell into shadow.  
  
I have become what I always feared to be.  
  
She resented the very thought of being taken. She remembered the day of their meeting all those years ago. It was over a decade by now, surely.  
  
She had been six. With long dark coils of hair pulled back into that familiar ornamental clip the serpent one Narcissa was so fond of, she was decked in green velvet with white lace fringe and collar. She had on a dark velvet cloak and a furry matching muffler. Her dark eyes surveyed her newest victim disdainfully.  
  
"Bellatrix this is Rodolphus, go on say hello then."  
  
"You look like a brute" Bella commented looking arrogantly down upon him.  
  
"Bellatrix! Manners!"  
  
'Now you two run along and play, Mrs. Black and myself have some affairs to put in order. See how you like her Roodie and tell me if you'd like her or not." Mrs. Lestrange said coldly. Bellatrix felt objectified by this, and was quite bitter about the impression of her being some doll in a display cabinet, that one could "have". As if to possess her like some thing, verses someone.  
  
"Come and catch me, stupid brute!" Bella hissed as she took off for the hills beyond the borders.  
  
He followed clumsily she dashed through even the deepest snow, swiftly, like a fairy she divinely glided across the ground like a prancing nymph. She ducked behind a tree and she peered around the side, as he looked stupidly from sided to side, lumbering along slowly calling out her name. She bit into her fingers to supress a giggle.  
  
"AHAH!" he said triumphantly, she grew wide-eyed at the prospect of being discovered. Slightly impressed she grinned with her pointed teeth, and took off again. He followed. She climbed trees and so did he, she lunged from branch to branch, he followed, like a shadow he was at her heels, and she grew irritated after a while.  
  
"No ones ever been able to catch me before!" she said angrily as se abandoned the muffler, deciding to throw it in his flushed laughing face instead of warm her hands. Caught off guard he fell from the tree and into a pile of deep snow.  
  
He left an imprint of a human deep and forbidding. Bellatrix thought of how much trouble she was going to e in when this whole shirade was discovered.  
  
'You damn silly ape!' she said in that tiny voice. "Come out now! I can't be getting in trouble you see, mum will take away my pillows."  
  
"Pillows?" Rodolphus said from behind her.  
  
"What? I just—you—and then you were—how did you?"  
  
'Magic." He said shrugging with a mocking lopsided smile.  
  
"Liar." She said through gritted teeth. She shifted through the snow, but nothing gave. She stomped her heel and a tunnel was revealed.  
  
"I knew it, you tunneled." Then she was struck with an agonizing thought. 'How did you tunnel that quickly?"  
  
"M-A-G-I-C." he repeated slowly.  
  
"How?"  
  
"You won't show signs f magic until you're my age." He said proudly pulling on his suspenders.  
  
"Pshaw" she made a noise of blatant dissent. "You're only six months older than me."  
  
She always made him chase her. At mealtimes she flung food at him, called him horrible names, and stuck insects in his food. She spat in his drink, and tripped him when he got up from the table. She showed magic for the first time in her trickery. She tied his shoelaces together by wiling it, and he tipped, she had him chased by bees, tangled in a thorn bush, hung by his trousers from a tall tree, bucked off a broom, and they disagreed on everything.  
  
But it was her fiery spirit he adored. And it was this torment he longed for so naturally he demanded she belong to him. And he constantly reminded her of it. He always requested he come back to see her on Sundays. He'd torment her with "my Bella", "my darling", "mine, mine, and mine".  
  
"I hate you! You make me sick!" she said to him one day when she was thirteen years old. And just as she moved for her copy of "Advanced Transfiguration" beside her on the cobblestone fence, he gripped her shoulders and kissed her harshly. She bit his mouth and spit his own blood in his eyes.  
  
"I will never be yours!" she said ferociously. Getting to her feet, and clicking her heels along the cobblestone path leaving him there with a mountain of books as she disappeared into the elongating darkness of the garden pathway. He wiped his mouth and stared after her for the longest time in amusement.  
  
Another time she was writing in her diary swinging along slightly, as an Augurey crowed mournfully. It was dusk and Rodolphus came up behind her silently. But she knew that annoying aura form a mile away. "Hullo, annoying fiancé." She said quietly.  
  
"Hullo my darling." He said kissing her cheek as she flinched.  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
"What does it look like you duffer?" she burst out savagely. "I'm writing!"  
  
"May I read?" he asked snatching it out of her hands before she could answer.  
  
"NO—you—may—NOT!" she said taking it back viciously a page tore from it in the struggle and fell onto the moist ground. For a moment they both stared at her neat cursive on the lined paper, and then he snatched it up to her horror, and he read aloud:  
  
"No light no air to live in A place called hate  
  
The city of fear  
  
I play dead  
  
And the hurting stops  
  
It's sometimes just like sleeping  
  
Curling up inside my private tortures  
  
I nestle into pain  
  
Hug suffering  
  
Caress every ache  
  
I play dead,"  
  
He stared at her for a moment. "How sentimental." And with that he handed it back to her and walked away smirking. The mocking bastard, she mumbled inside her head.   
  
And now here she stood, on the threshold of a new life. And she wasn't sure if she were pleased, angry, happy or irritated by the prospect. And then she thought of her master, and a smile spread across her face at long last. 


End file.
